The more I think about it the more clearly I realize that that ad
was only a sort of private declaration of war, and probably a little
clumsy. I don't suppose anybody has the situation sized-up accurately,
though maybe Walter L. came close to it in his definition of the present
phase as a series of civil wars in which Russia will take the side of the
rebels and we'll be trying to put the rebellion down. That's what's
most infuriating in our position--we're going to have to smash most
of Korea to save it from slavery, and it's going to make us most
unpopular there.

No doubt you saw the Alsop article about the "business-as-
usual" war.
2 That's perhaps a bit exaggerated but I think it's true that
the country doesn't think it's at war. The crisis doesn't look immediate
to us here--we're not shocked into action nor into making sharp
discriminations between the loyal and the disloyal.

These are only opinions, of course. A fellow would really have to
be a prophet to know what ought to be done next, and I'm no
prophet.

Give my best to your wife. My wife doesn't agree with me
either--and she says some of the things which you have written to me.

Russian delegate Malik had argued against U.N. intervention in Korea on the
grounds that the conflict there was a civil war. In his columns in the New York Herald
Tribune Walter Lippmann took up the idea and projected a future in which Russia
promoted civil disturbances throughout the world and used them as means of enslaving
the countries involved. Lippmann thought it would be difficult for America to deal with
those situations without wrecking a country in the process of defending it ( 1950:
August 10, p. 21, cols. 1-2; August 14, p. 15, cols. 1-2.; August 17, p. 19, cols. 1-2).

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.